You'd think the cover would have given us a clue

Twilight Part 2
(Previous Posts: Wall-E, Part 1)

So, we've got little girls tucking their hair and watching every move he makes. Good stuff, isn't it? I mean it. The writer of Proverbs 29 says that there are four things that are too wonderful for him...the last is the way of a man with a maiden. Makes us smile to think of it. (Or scares us to death when the little girl is your teen daughter.) What am I saying could be so wrong with that desire?

Nothing...when it's accepted as a gift from God...to be used and exalted under the guidelines He gives. When it's embraced so that the two don't become more than they are for themselves, but so the watching world sees...Paul says they literally can see...the joining of Christ and His Church. When God is exalted, Christ is honored and the Spirit reigns in the joining? That's good stuff. And if that's our highest goal...our only desire which keeps all those other desires in their place...it's very good. God said so Himself in Genesis 1:28-31, didn't He? He's the one who brought Adam and Eve together. He sanctioned that joining Himself. He made us this way as women. And He did good.

But then came Genesis 3 and that which was only good became tainted...poisoned...not by the fruit that was eaten but by the desire in her that caused her give birth to sin and to reach out for it. When she was created, Eve had in her a desire but it was a desire that was overruled by her allegiance to her God. She knew what she could do with it and what she couldn't. She knew that if it was used within the bounds given, good followed. And she knew that if she went outside of it, she'd die. And that mattered to her...for a while. We don't know how long. I'm guessing it didn't take too long. It would have been a matter of minutes if it had been me. I'm really excellent at thinking I know better than God.

But then the Bible says that a serpent came and spoke to her...challenged her view of God and the goodness of His commands...and she saw things differently than before. That's the important part...how we see. Not how we see physically, but how we see God. There's a reason that Paul prayed that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened. He knew that our hearts are more than blind...they're stone...dead rock...unable to love and obey God. And so we can't see like we need to see when it comes to love...to romance...to this thing that rises between men and women.

If we could just get that then the battle is mostly won for we won't assume that if we love it then it must be great...if we are moved then it must be good for us...if we feel ourselves softening at words spoken by a man in a book we will remember that it may be good...but maybe not. Maybe it's just hitting us like that fruit hit Eve. Remember what she said deep in that heart of hers? She saw that it was good and would help her and besides, look how pretty it is. How...tell me...how could anything like that be bad for her??

So, here we are with Twilight. And there's all the excuses you've heard or given. Some of them are good questions and some of them sound a lot like Eve's rationale in the garden...how could something so good be so bad? Just a little taste won't do any harm.

• It's just a book.
• I know there's some things in it that they do that aren't okay, but it's full of great stuff that is okay.
  
• They don't have sex. He really loves her and is committed to waiting until marriage to have her.
• Besides, it's really well written. It just grips you from the start and you can't put it down.
• He's so great...protects her...cares for her...sacrifices himself for her.
• And she loves him so much she'll do anything for him.
• They are devoted to each other.
• It hasn't done anything bad in me that I can see. It's just for fun.
• Or as a couple of girls have put it...Come on, Mom. It's not like I'm going to read it and go out and have sex. I just want to read it.

But look at the title of this post again. I mean it. Have you seen the cover? They’re not trying to hide it. Hands offering fruit...get it? This isn't about romance. It's about temptation...the temptation that lures every woman ever born. It's about desire...the desire for the forbidden. It's about forsaking what we know for what we feel. Can you feel the pull in you every day like I can? Can you see yourself as a woman fighting to have your feelings under God's control? Can you feel the discontent that we battle for contentment where we really are and what we really have? Can you feel yourself as Eve's daughter struggling to rejoice only where God rejoices?

We'll get to that...and to the specifics about the book…promise.